ACCESSIBILITY
Accessible broadcasting
Accessible broadcasts with live captioning and sign language interpreting: a practical example.
PROJECT
Project description
Accessibility has arrived in all areas of life and is desirable. Live broadcasts can and should also be designed to be accessible, or at least low-barrier. This can be achieved, for example, through live captioning or sign language interpreting. We present an example here, and we also show you what else is possible.
In 2021 and 2022, the Oldenburg children’s and youth book fair “KIBUM” was held as a hybrid event. A particular focus was on accessible broadcasting – specifically, live captioning was offered for every broadcast on a low-barrier platform. The talks and book readings of the nearly two-week fair were made available to schools across Germany.
EXECUTION
Live captioning
The live picture produced on site was sent with very low latency to two live captioners in their respective home offices. Both were connected via special captioning technology in which one created the captions while the other corrected them. The texts were sent back to the control room on site and inserted into the live picture. Processing time was about 4 seconds, so the link between picture and text was preserved.
For this kind of captioning you need at least 2 captioners, who either work on site or, as in this project, remotely. The quality of the captioning is therefore at a very high level.
Sign language interpreting
The alternative to live captioning is sign language interpreting. It was not used at KIBUM, but it is likewise a proven way to remove a barrier for people with hearing impairments.
Internationally this is already much more established than in Germany. The sample image shows the broadcast from the White House, where sign language interpreting is mandatory.
As we do not always photograph our work: a broadcast with us would look something like this. Here, too, interpreters can work from home offices.
Artificial intelligence
It was not used in the project described. Nevertheless, we would like to present AI here as an option for creating subtitles:
Existing solutions are complex and expensive. Accordingly, we have long been working on an AI solution and now have it in experimental beta use. The same video signal is sent in parallel to the production stream into a cloud workflow, where an AI generates subtitles from speech and inserts them into the signal. The result still has considerable room for improvement. With every use of this technology, the AI learns and keeps getting better.
Feel free to get in touch.
Platform
The entire children’s and youth book fair was broadcast on a platform we built. The platform was designed to be low-barrier in order to remove as many obstacles as possible to an accessible livestream.
In addition to the livestreams, information about the books, downloads on the topics and images were provided. Participants could actively contribute to the event during the broadcasts via a chat module.
Two players were integrated in each case – one with and one without assistance.
On-site production
Three PTZ cameras were installed at the Oldenburg cultural centre PFL for the entire project period. They captured performances and readings from varied angles and turned them into an appealing livestream. It was important that book readings for children were also made interesting and exciting in the livestream.
There was no internet connection available on site. To still guarantee a stable livestream, one of our bonding routers was used, providing a fail-safe internet connection over several mobile connections, over which we broadcast.
Benefits
- Accessibility is inclusive and enables people to take part.
- Connecting interpreters remotely saves budget, as interpreters incur no travel or accommodation costs. At the same time, it increases the availability of human interpreting resources.
- Using AI allows a much more comprehensive range of accessibility across many more livestreams, as human resources and budgets hardly matter any more.
Broadcasting accessibly?
Tell us about your project. We will get back to you with an individual quote.